This is the email I received this afternoon from Football DataCo:
Dear Sirs,
DataCo_NBCAD_17397
We write on behalf of the Football Data Co Limited which is the appointed licensee of the FA Premier League, the Football League, the Scottish Premier League and the Scottish Football League (”the Leagues”) in respect of the licensing of certain intellectual property rights of the Leagues, including those in the fixture lists for this season August 2007 - May 2008 (”the Fixture Lists”), for use by third parties.
We have noticed that your website http://www.bwfcuk.com/matches is displaying Football Fixtures. In order to display the Fixture Lists you must either obtain the necessary license from Football DataCo (dfolker@football-dataco.com) or be an officially nominated fanzine for your chosen club. If you are not nominated as the official club fanzine and you do not wish to purchase a fixture license you can post a link to your club’s official site.
Without nominated fanzine status or a license there is no provision for any fixture to appear in advance of the match being played. However, if there is an editorial preview of the next upcoming match in which the fixture is mentioned then this is unlikely to be objected to provided this is done in a clearly editorial form. Mentioning more than one fixture would not be accepted.
We thank you for your cooperation.
Yours sincerely,
Philip Stubbs
I have replied, pointing out this article - especially the section that says:
The European Court of Justice in Luxembourg ruled last December that football authorities cannot charge for fixture lists under the EU’s database directive 1996.
I doubt I will be able to stand up to these people, but at least it isn’t just me - please sign the petition at http://www.freethefixtures.com/.
It does seem strange that they complain about the slight problem of the fixtures but overlook the blatant copyright infringements in the video section!
shame to hear about that.
You might as well get rid of the match list section.
And i totally agree with you, what about the video’s…., theres more copy right inthere then your written work.
I will sign the petition right now, i hope this keeps up.
I haven’t had any problems with my youtube site…., YET!!!:-)
good lcuky.
Just got a reply from Phil at Football DataCo and he says that any past results - including goalscorers and tables - can stay. It’s just the fixtures that have to go.
It’s not really a big deal - I will just link to the official fixtures page at http://www.bwfc.co.uk
Yea, you might as well.
I dont want all your effort to make this new site go down to waste! That’ll suck!
Seeyaz later then…, a big day!!!